Hanoi rounds up street kids pre-APEC -rights group

HANOI, Nov 13 (Reuters) Homeless children have been removed from Hanoi streets and mistreated in detention centres before important events such as this week's Asia-Pacific summit in the Vietnamese capital, US-based Human Rights Watch said today.

The group said its research over three years showed street children ''are subject to routine beatings, verbal abuse and mistreatment by staff'' during detentions that last two weeks to six months in the Dong Dau Social Protection Center near Hanoi.

A government spokesman did not immediately comment on the report, ''Children of the Dust: Abuse of Hanoi Street Children in Detention'', which contains testimonies from street children, who are sometimes called ''bui doi'' in Vietnamese, meaning ''the dust of life''.

''Human Rights Watch is concerned that street children are particularly vulnerable to arrest now, as the Vietnamese government attempts to present its best face'' for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Hanoi is hosting the 21-member forum's leaders' week November 12-19 including US President George W Bush, President Hu Jintao of China and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the biggest conference in the Communist-run country's history.

The New York-based rights group's 77-page report covering 2003-2006, said there were similar campaigns to remove homeless people before the 2003 South East Asian Games and the 2004 Asia-Europe Summit Meeting in the capital.

Vietnam has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world after China and like its giant northern neighbour, there has been an increase in migration to cities from the countryside.

Homeless children are seen walking the streets offering to polish shoes and they sell chewing gum, postcards and copies of guide books and novels to tourists. They earn about 1.25 dollars or less a day, the rights group said.

Government statistics estimate there are 23,000 street children in Vietnam, about 1,500 of them in Hanoi.

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